2006 marked a very positive year in the fight against drugs. For the first time the act of sharing drugs was no longer punishable with a mandatory term of imprisonment. Through the intervention of the Social Affairs Committee, following a “behind the scenes” rapprochement between the government and the opposition, a new chapter of trust and collaboration was signed in the fight against drug trafficking. It is hoped that the dialogue that has started has indeed heralded a new era of bipartisanship in matters relating to the drugs issue in the same way that immigration issues are currently being handled.

You might find the fact of removing the mandatory imprisonment penalty that used to accompany the criminal act of sharing drugs a sign of weakness in the fight against trafficking. But, in spite of first perceptions, it is indeed a sign of strength. Drug laws tend to confuse the user with the pusher particularly where punishment is concerned. In some circumstances while it is more than obvious, not only to the courts but to anyone and anything under the sun, that an accused person is a user and not a baron, yet the punishment meted out is comparable to one imposed upon a trafficker. Is it not obvious that a sharer of a drug is not a trafficker? Then why did it take so long for us to come to terms with definitions?

In the fight against drug trafficking we must first put our priorities right. Who do we really want behind bars? I, for one, cannot understand how a user can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society by locking him in a cell, for a determinate term, in a correctional facility where there is drug abuse. Unless the user is determined to carry on living the nightmare of consuming drugs out of his own choice in full defiance of the law, thus rendering himself a threat to society, and no matter how much society had tried to change his ways, retributive justice is no solution.

Instead of mandatory imprisonment terms, rehabilitation and proper structures for rehabilitation are the solution. I have seen drug users at their very worst, in the heat of their addiction causing mayhem, including sporadic resorts to trafficking for the sake of supporting their addiction. They have now transformed themselves, within a couple of years, into good law-abiding citizens after a period of rehabilitation. Believe me, it is a beautiful experience to lead a drug user from oblivion to salvation.

The war on drug barons must of course continue. We have very good laws against drug importation and trafficking with severe punishments, including life imprisonment. But I have a vision that has matured through professional and political experience. The war on drug barons is not won whenever a drug baron is arrested, tried and convicted.

But is it not true that our society is producing more drug addicts than it ever did before as the supply has nonetheless increased. Who are the new barons who are supplying the market nowadays?

The war against drug trafficking is won every day a user is rehabilitated and removed from the influence of his vice. Every time a user is brought back and reintegrated into society he is like a nail in the coffin of the industry of drug barons. But this cannot be successfully accomplished if our drug laws still do not satisfactorily distinguish between the user and the trafficker and between traffickers and traffickers.

There are still situations of real injustice in our drug laws. Do you know, for instance, that a user who, because of his addiction, is tried and convicted for ancillary crimes, such as theft, for a period of more than two years cannot have access to rehabilitation programmes at the correctional facility? Instead he is deposited in one of those divisions where drugs are available. Would it not be far more beneficial to the user and to society itself that a user is granted access to rehab at all times irrespective of the degree of punishment he is served?

There are worse situations. A habitual user is caught trafficking drugs to support his addiction. He is by no means a baron but a victim of the real barons who use, abuse and exploit him to further their trade in disguise. He is not a pusher but a runner, mechanically obeying the orders of his barons who compensate him for his services by providing him with drugs for his own use and to consolidate their control on him.

He is eventually caught in the act, arrested and released by the police pending arraignment for trafficking before a court of law at an indeterminate date in the future. (You see, even the police distinguish between the real barons and the poor users who are drawn into trafficking drugs, as otherwise the police, having arrested a true baron, would have presented him before a court of law within 48 hours under arrest in order to secure a decree of preventive custody.)

Within a couple of years the user successfully rehabilitates from his addiction, finds a decent job, a brave and good woman, marries and has children. He is now fully reintegrated in society. But he is then brutally reminded of his past when he is served by the police with a summons to reply to a charge of drug trafficking that happened three or four years before and carrying a minimum mandatory punishment of six months imprisonment. There is no escape – if found guilty, and he will, the man must leave his family and serve time in prison exposed to his previous vices and the gaping jaws of criminality. What a self-defeatist law!

I have a vision for change. And I wish that you share it.

Dr Gulia is the Opposition’s main spokesman on home affairs.